So it begins for the new Rockets, who are staring at the same situation for the fourth consecutive year.

Tilman Fertitta is now the billionaire writing the huge checks at Toyota Center and already had a mini-parade on his coronation day. Chris Paul is the improved version of Dwight Howard, allowing do-it-all James Harden to share the weight on and off the hardwood.

Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell and about 20 other former Rockets are Clippers. Carmelo Anthony is living the thrilling Oklahoma City life with Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

But all that matters for the 2017-18 Rockets are the same names from 2014-15. And 2015-16. And 2016-17.

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Bad dude Kevin Durant was added to Golden State's superteam last season, and the Warriors ended up winning 67 regular-season games on the way to their second championship in three years and third consecutive Finals appearance.

League playing catchup

The superpower Warriors are averaging 69 victories the last three seasons. No wonder the rest of the NBA has exchanged franchise faces like trading cards - Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving in Boston; Isaiah Thomas and Dwyane Wade joining King James in Cleveland; Jimmy Butler in Minnesota - just to have a chance at winning a couple of playoff games against overloaded Golden State.

Even the Rockets' season opener for 2017 is slanted.

The team that won 55 games last season and featured the Coach of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year and MVP runner-up is rewarded by opening up Tuesday night on national TV … more than 1,900 miles away.

The Warriors get the banner treatment, shiny rings for another finger and an international spotlight.

Mike D'Antoni's Rockets get to debate about whether they want to be on the court as the NBA fawns over the contemporary version of Michael Jordan's Bulls.

"My only philosophy is it's better to be receiving than watching," D'Antoni said. "We need to be the other team."

Spoken like a coach who watched his team be humiliated by San Antonio in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals last season, and didn't have an answer for why Harden barely showed up when his squad needed him most.

The Rockets can talk annual competitiveness all they want. They've also only been to the conference finals once in the last 20 years. And the last time they were there (2014-15), they were setting up the Splash Brothers and Golden State's first superteam championship run.

D'Antoni set 60 wins as a realistic goal Monday. Great.

But the Rockets' real ideal should be conference finals or bust in 2017-18, all while hoping Harden and Paul discover enough on-court magic during the next seven months to eventually go further than The Beard and Superman did.

D'Antoni also acknowledged the Rockets were "very mediocre" after the All-Star break last season, which partly explains why a team with the second-best player in the NBA again crashed into a wall when the real games started being played.

Paul added to mix

Gregg Popovich outmaneuvered D'Antoni in a six-game series, winning the board without Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker. And after falling to the Warriors in the playoffs the previous two years, what should have been Golden State-Rockets in the conference finals ended up with CP3 in Houston and general manager Daryl Morey remaking his roster again.

I love this team's on-paper depth and it's the No. 1 reason (outside of Harden) that anything less than the conference finals should have Fertitta immediately canceling all future parades. Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson, Clint Capela, Nene, P.J. Tucker, Luc Mbah a Moute and Tarik Black allow D'Antoni to at least go 10-deep. With offensive inexperience exchanged for veteran defense and intensity, the Harden-as-a-post-defender in the playoffs nonsense should never be seen again.

These Rockets can unleash 50-point quarters, sink 1,500 3s, win more regular-season games than the 1993-94 Rockets … and it still won't matter.

Warriors. Warriors. Warriors. That should be the Rockets' primary focus from mid-October into mid-May. Anything less than what Golden State does won't be good enough.

Anything short of the Western Conference finals should have Fertitta asking why Howard took the old Rockets further.